Introspection
by The Infamous Wootermelon
Summary: A Death Eater attack on Hogwarts drives Lily to the Forbidden Forest, where she comes to terms with the most terrifying thing on earth: introspection. Marauderera
1. Chapter 1

_**Introspection**_

_**Chapter One: Survival of the Fittest**_

_Disclaimer:_ I own the plot and original concepts, characters, et cetera. Everything else belongs to its respective creator(s).

Stumbling blindly across the grounds, Lily Evans ran away from all of the terror in the castle that lay behind her, away from the screams and the horrid green light. The panicky chaos thriving in orderly Hogwarts, where the magical events were regulated and there was routine broken only by the spontaneity of rowdy students, seemed a strange concept in a foreign language. Anarchy, where the only rule was the primal one of evolution, that the fittest survived, pulsed behind her like a writhing maggot trying to eat through the most succulent piece of foul decay.

So Lily kept on running, her fright-induced adrenaline helping her to ignore the burning ache starting to lick its way up her cramping calves and side, keeping her gasping for the cold, stinging air that froze the tears on her cheeks. The hem of her wet cloak slapped against her legs, the edges of black cloth like ice and as painful. Oblivious winter snow glittered in the cold sunlight as it fell down in lacy flakes like finely faceted diamonds and lay before her in an unblemished white blanket that deadened the sound of desperate breaths that sliced jaggedly like shards of glass and nails through her throat and lungs.

Her slowing pace was bringing her closer to the Forbidden Forest, a dangerous place and paradoxically the only haven for her right now. The churned-up snow led a path to her. Her numb, pink fingers bent stiffly, as if they were too heavily starched, to form a grip on the handle of her wand, obliterating the tracks with a spell repeated many times. Then she pocketed her wand and fled deeper into the forest, the rolling, curved paths of tears an icy trail of sorrow paved onto her face, a path for the hot flood of tears to slip down, washing her face in salty streaks.

Those same tears burned her raw, swollen eyes and blurred her vision. Lily wiped them bitterly away with a frozen fist as she ran blindly, not trying to go anyway, simply trying to get _away_. Finally, she collapsed, too exhausted and fear-ridden to move, the dull ache washing away to sharp pins and needles from the snow through her Hogwarts robes and the black cloak she wore. Her eyes were frozen shut and she was too tired to move.

The scarlet traces of her retina faded to black as she fell into a troubled sleep.


	2. Chapter 2

_**Introspection**_

_**Chapter Two: Simply Alone**_

Lily woke up to the sound of her teeth chattering and the blunt throbbing in her jaw and teeth from the jarring, repetitive collisions. She huddled deeper into the insulated, warm cocoon of her black cloak, taking up the hood to warm her tingling scalp and her ringing ears and reaching inside the pocket for her gloves and wand.

"Damn it!" Lily hissed when she didn't feel the familiar wooden shaft in her pocket. She pressed her mouth together in a thin line and squeezed her eyelids tightly shut to stifle a sob. "Come on, Lily; this is no time to over-emote." Her calm, rational voice broke into the silence, hoarse but steady and familiar. She also knew that she wasn't over-emoting; this was a life-or-death situation. "You know that crying won't get you anywhere."

She took a deep breath and opened her eyes, then drew on her woolen gloves, rubbing her hands together to create friction and savoring the warm burst of blood circulating into the numb appendages anesthetized by cold. Lily clenched her hands into two loose fists and rubbed her thumbs along the palms of her hands, licking her chapped lips and shivering for a moment.

"My God, I could use a cigarette," Lily moaned softly. "I shouldn't have quit. Not only would I be more relaxed, but I would have fire. Of course, if I had my wand…"

Her jaw tightened to keep her teeth from chattering, preventing her from talking. In the enveloping silence, Lily's mind was dragged involuntarily to what had just happened and why she was alone, in the Forbidden Forest, in ankle-deep snow, at night. The downpour of snow had filled in her tracks while she had slept.

Images of hooded, masked figures swathed in black, Unforgivable Curses thrown about like inconsequential playthings played over and over and over again in her mind, then one of the terrifying figures screaming, "Fucking Mudblood!" and Lily looked down the receiving end of the wand like a frightened deer in the headlights. Remembering the pain of the subsequent "_Crucio!_" made her twitch involuntarily and her heart race with agony and fear.

A flash of red light had flown to the black-garbed figure, distracting them.

Lily had bolted like a coward.

She tore off the red-and-gold scarf violently, tears stinging her crusted eyes. Lily looked at the thick, warm yard of material then buried her face into it, letting the knitted cloth soak up the heated saltiness of her tears.

She didn't deserve to be a Gryffindor. She'd run away with her proverbial tail between her legs so that everyone could defend themselves on their own, left them to die beneath the onslaught of the Death Eaters. Had Gryffindor been there, Lily was damn sure he'd shake his head and kill her himself. She wasn't fit to be in the house that was the very epitome of bravery when she had deserted all courage and honor and retreated like a dog, a beaten, lowly tramp.

These Death Eaters hated her because of her "inferior" Muggle-born blood. They didn't hate _her_; they hated her ancestors and the fact that she was a witch, even without a single droplet of magical blood. And her sister hated her for that reason too, even if she hated her differently, from another perspective. To Petunia, Lily was a freak of nature. She'd reduced her own sister, her flesh and blood, to a freakish, spell-casting, wand-wielding, one-woman circus. That had a repulsive charm to it.

Then Lily thought of her parents and the legion of family who knew and found it either a fascinating topic or abhorred her magic. She'd never see her parents or her two remaining grandparents again. Oh, God, she'd die out in the forest, alone, with nothing but thoughts and memories to morbidly comfort her.

Crying, she shifted into a world of floating, deep black oblivion.


	3. Chapter 3

_**Introspection**_

_**Chapter Three: A Time to Talk**_

Her eyes couldn't open; the layers of built-up salt had crusted her eyes shut. She tried to crack her eyes open, but a few grains feel into her eyes. Lily tightened them again and rubbed the crusty tear residue off with her fingertips after taking a glove off. As soon as she finished, she opened her eyes –

– and froze.

In front of her was a huge, angry-looking unicorn. His long horn was brandished like a spear, pearly red in the reflected light of the mirror-like snow in the dawn. A vaporous puff of crystalline mist rose from his equine nostrils as they flared open enough to reveal the red mucous tissue. His cloven hooves left deep imprints into the snow as he stalked away madly, glistening white sides shining in the brilliance of the snow and its own silver luster, sleek and glossy.

The unicorn was gone and Lily let out a bated breath of relief, the fog dissipating in the crisp winter air. Her Gryffindor scarf was wound about her neck again. She frowned; she hadn't done that, and yet there it was, tangled around her throat. A sad smile graced her mouth when her romantic mind contemplated some divine meaning behind the incident. The wistful smile turned sarcastic when her belly gave a haughty grumble.

"Shut up," she snapped playfully. "If I had the food to feed you, I swear I would've by now."

It growled its displeasure again so strongly she felt her intestines squelch.

Lily ignored it valiantly, until at last it silenced sullenly, still giving the odd twinge. Then she gave herself a weird face she couldn't see.

"Great, I'm talking to my stomach. That has _got_ to be a sign of insanity," she told herself laughingly. "I'm sure Mr. Sigmund Freud would have something to say about that." Lily adopted a mockery of a deep baritone that sounded apish. "Talking to body parts is a sign of loneliness. You feel that you have no one to talk to, so you personify objects and speak to them, even imagine responses and dialogue."

Her voice stopped suddenly. She just realized how true that was. There was no one to talk to, though she did speak to herself a lot.

"Melodramatic much?" she scolded herself. "You're being uptight and psychoanalyzing every little thing you do."

She sighed, and then brought her knees up to her chest.

"If I make it out of this alive, I swear I'll…" She trailed off, trying to think of what'd she would have never done before. "…go out with Potter," Lily finished. "_If_ I survive, I'll go out with Potter. And since the chances are slim to none – oh, God!"

She whirled around, heart accelerating. Her eyes immediately found the source of the sound of snow crunching underfoot.

Or, underhoof, as it were. A centaur, probably younger than her, with whitish blonde hair and melancholy sapphire eyes, came up behind her. His horse body was a palomino.

"Are you one of the Hogwarts students?" he asked her.

"Yes – I'm lost. My name is Lily Evans," she replied, too startled to think of anything.

"Get on my back; I'll get you to Hogwarts." He handed her the wand she'd been missing. "Is this yours? I found it on the ground."

"I guess the odds are in Potter's favor," she murmured to herself.


	4. Chapter 4

_**Introspection**_

**_Chapter Four: Life-Long Proposals_**

"Stupid James," Lily laughed happily as she looked admiringly at the beautiful diamond ring on her finger. It had been newly washed. "Only _you_ would think – or not, as it were – to put it in the pudding."

He was blushing; she had swallowed a spoonful of pudding and choked on the expensive ring. It had been the most comedic, least romantic way of proposing to true love and life-long commitment that she could think of. The Christmas dinner had been partially ruined, or enhanced, depending on how she looked at it, by the use of the Heimlich maneuver, but laughing had been restored by the discovery of the ring and the scheme behind it.

Dumbledore smiled at them, his blue eyes twinkling behind the half-moon spectacles that were perched on his large, crooked nose. "My best wishes," he told them in an earnest but mild voice, "but I'm afraid that I called you here on a rather grave matter."

His piercing stare was boring into them.

"As you know, the self-styled Dark Lord, Voldemort, is gaining more and more power. His army of Death Eaters…"

Lily felt a surge of completion. Here was her chance to regain her courage and honor and prove it to herself. She'd never forgotten the ordeal in the Forest.

"Will you two join the Order of the Phoenix?"

The answer was a resounding "yes" from both of them, at the same time.

"This will change you lives and is not a decision to be made lightly," Dumbledore said, a look of warning in his eyes.

"Like marriage?" James teased, endeavoring to lighten the mood. Then the mischief went from his hazel eyes, matching his former Headmaster's in sobriety. "We know."

"And the answer is still yes," Lily said stubbornly, grabbing James's hand and lacing her fingers into his. "It always will be."


End file.
